It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

We love Christmastime. Though that should be 'enough said,' here are 10 reasons why, this year at the Singer home we truly can say, "it's the most wonderful time of the year."

1. We made our 2nd annual batch of Christmas cookie countdown chains. I love these things; they're so darned cute, though I missed Megan severely this year as I did most of the chain making solo.

2. We've had a couple snows here in New England this December. Hard to pass up a good snowman opportunity.

3. Annie has become a walkin' girl. She loves the Christmas tree and has been very good with it actually. She has figured out which ornaments are bells and likes to whack at them but for the most part, things have gone untouched.

4. Christmas doesn't feel as much like Christmas without being around family. We were glad we got 1 1/2 days with Uncle Phil.


5. We had our Preschool Christmas Program--a fun night with friends and pretty much our CT version of Music and the Spoken Word, 4 year old style. Followed up with nachos and desserts, it made for a great evening.

6. A friend gave us a ticket to go to Bright Nights up in Springfield, MA. This was our first time going and we thought it was great. The kids absolutely loved it and it brought back many a memory for Matt who attended a similar light display every year growing up.

7. One of my favorite parts of Christmastime is setting up our nativities. We have 9 or 10 of them that we have collected over our marriage from different places we have been. Matt has gotten them from his travels to Brazil, Peru, Bolivia and Mexico; I have added to our collection with ones from Israel and Puerto Rico; and we have our combined memory nativities from Argentina and the good ole U.S. of A. (though probably made in China).

8. I love putting up Christmas cards we receive on the wall. I guess since we are so far from so many that we love, I love getting to see pictures and have memories right there in my kitchen all December. It helps me think of everyone more and I love it.

This was last week...we had a lot more late comers this week.

If you zoom in, maybe you'll even see a card from you! If not, we'd love one next year. Hint hint! :)

9. What could be a better way to spend Christmas Eve day than to head to Chuck E. Cheese with the neighbors. It was a great way to relieve some of that Christmas excitement that was building up and bouncing off the walls at our house. Plus it wasn't too crowded...a bonus!

10. New PAJAMAS!!! Aunt Megan has begun the tradition at our home with a PJ present that gets opened on Christmas Eve. Mary had it figured out what the present was and Andrew kept saying "I'm just so excited b/c Aunt Megan always does crazy things." (?)

The trivia question that goes along with these pictures is this: can you determine which of our children has the hardest time taking a 'normal' picture. While the answer seems to be 'all of the above', one actually seems to stand out a bit here.

Wow! 18 hours later, there you have it. Yea Christmastime.

All I Want for Christmas is my Two Front Teeth

Thanks to Mary, this song actually has meaning in our home this year.

As has been typical with her now 5 teeth lost, it was anticlimactic. A really wiggly tooth for a few days and then I looked over at Mary one afternoon last week and it was gone. No clue how, when, or where. The biggest thing that puzzled her was why saying "Merry Christmas" didn't sound exactly like "Merry Chrithmath" the way the song told her it naturally would. She said "Merry Christmas" at least a half dozen times before she finally went to the mirror to double check it was gone.

Merry(?) Mary(?) Christmas, to You

A cute Christmas something is happening at our house again. It happened when Mary was 2, when Andrew was 2 and now that Whit is 2, it's happening again. And I love it.

When Mary was 2, she was constantly walking around saying 'Merry Christmas', 'Mommy Christmas', and 'Daddy Christmas'.

And now, a typical conversation at our house these days is like this:
Me: "Ho Ho Ho, Merry Christmas"
Whitney: "No Mommy, Ho Ho Ho Whitney Christmas"

Can't wait to hear Annie next year.

Tonight's Gonna Be A Good Night

This was Whitney's theme song for moving from the crib to her toddler bed this week. While we took things down and set things up, she kept singing "Tonight's gonna be a good good night." And it was...we're 3 nights and counting now and there have been no troubles, no tears, no middle of the night visitors. Awesome.

America's Got Talent...

Actually, better said is "Rita's got talent." Just wanted to show off the oh so adorable things my mother-in-law made for the kids.

Skirts for Mary and Whitney:

A jumper for Annie: (the face is deceiving...she loves it)

Dinosaur PJs for Andrew:

Thanks so much Rita. We love them!

I'm in a New York State of Mind

Actually this blog post should be entitled "when you get caught between the moon and New York City" because that song was stuck in my mind the entire weekend (just ask Megan)--it just doesn't fit with the weekend though, so the other will have to do.

This past weekend I got away. My mom and Nan flew to NYC to see Megan and since I'm so close, I decided to go too. Matt had the kids from Thursday afternoon til Sunday afternoon. It was SO great to get away, SO great to be with Mom, Nan, and Meg, and then SO great to come home. Sounds pretty perfect if you ask me.

We did so much, I'll summarize as best I can. Let's roll.

REGIS AND KELLY

Megan's friend works for Good Morning America and was able to get us VIP tickets to Regis and Kelly. SO FUN! The whole experience was just really cool. The studio is smaller than you would guess and it was fun to see all the behind the scenes stuff happening while Regis and Kelly were just doing their thing. I was sad to not win the audience prize but excited that my sister saw us on TV four different times.

We got to see James Marsden and the 3 finalist from Project Runway. After our show, they filmed 2 segments for future shows, so we stuck around and got to see a cooking segment with chef Jamie Oliver and then an interview with Mariah Carey. My celebrity connections are out of control!

We are stoked, can't you tell!

Nan's clothes even matched the set. (not surprising) :)
Regis and Kelly with James Marsden
(this is when I was wishing for a nicer camera. My non flash photography left me with lots of blury pictures)
Mariah...the diva indeed. Her segment will air in a few weeks. I would have never guessed that someone would need so much pampering during a commercial break, after having only been on air like 3 minutes. Who knew?

MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

We only were here for about 30 minutes, but this museum alone made me feel like I need to get brave and actually come to NYC as a whole family. The kids would have loved it, biggest kid of all being Matt.

CITY BUS TOUR

I wouldn't have thought of doing this, but it was a lot of fun. We saw lots of stuff in not a lot of time and got a better feel for the city as a whole. Plus 2 of our 3 tour guides were so funny. We're still hoping that #3 is having a better day. It was on our bus tour near Greenwich Village that our driver started shouting like a lunatic that 'Tony Soprano was in the jeep'. Then he followed an SUV and I am now able to say I have seen James Gandolfini driving his SUV--and that he looked 'thrilled' to see me.

A cold day on the upper deck--gotta love the clear plastic covering.

A rare group shot
Nan is so funny. The wind was CRAZY cold on this tour at the start. In the blink of an eye, Nan became a New York celebrity--hair covered, sunglasses, scarve. I'm sure we missed out on some valuable NY information from our tour guide because we all just kept laughing at Nan and her scarf blowing in the wind.


SOUTH PACIFIC
Nan was excited to see South Pacific and I was excited to go to a show. I didn't remember the story line of South Pacific at all. None of it came back to me while we were watching it, but it was fun. It was a really fun show, but it was also a wierd show.

LOTS OF FOOD
Crepes on Columbus, Sara Beths, A Salt & Battery (fish and chips), Levaines Bakery (cookies), Patsy's Diner, Shake Shack

LOTS OF FUN!!

Columbus Circle

A Salt & Battery--it was fun to have fish and chips for Nan.

I think they passed her test.

We went through a big farmer's market and Nan made a true 'gasp' at the site of the largest cauliflower we had ever seen. And my mom fell in love with beautiful brussell sprouts. In NYC? Who knew?

Us all outside the UN. No tour though...it was Saturday.

I call this one "two ladies on a bench"

And this one "two dead ladies on a bench"

I love that moms and nans let you do wierd things. :)

Thanks for all the fun Mom, Nan, and Megan--it was a rare treat to get to spend so much time with just you guys. Thanks for letting me go Matt!!

Harry Potter Wanna Be...

We have loved Harry Potter for as long as I can remember. On opening day of the first movie, I left work during my 7th period prep so that we could make it to the late afternoon showing--us and all the Potter crazed kids in Durham, NC. I'll even admit that we own a Harry Potter card game (though we haven't played it in several years). Matt and I wish we could use magic and frequently shout out things like "accio remote", "wingardium leviosa", or "expecto patronum" ('accio' is the definite favorite).

Last night at basketball, however, Matt took his Harry Potterness to a whole new level.

(thanks Joe!)

To the Pumpkin Patch We Go...

This year we are doing Andrew's preschool with a small group of friends. Right before Halloween we made it to the pumpkin patch. Elm Knoll delivered!!!! The kids had a blast and every time we turned around, the workers were doing something for us--first it was food to feed the animals, then the unexpected hayride offer, then later it was popcorn for the kids, followed by coloring books. You would have thought we called in advance or something.

Andrew feeding corn to the sheep
This is as close at Whit would get.

Spooky

A few "spooky" or at least sort of frightening things this Halloween season at the Singers include:

Spooky pumpkin carving (Andrew's, Mary's then Whit's)

Frightening Wigs--oh my!

Spooky that we had just raked up 12 HUGELY GINORMOUS piles of leaves and suddenly it looks like we didn't do anything. The leaves keep a comin'! SPOOKY!! (or the result of a heck of a lot of trees + a heck of a lot of wind)

The kids and our neighbor friends on our 3rd Trick or Treat together. We love great neighbors!!Our bunch actually was more cute than spooky. :)

So creepy how much candy these kids hauled in!

Whitney's new way of sleeping--one blanket has to be on her head. Kids are frighteningly strange sometimes. :)

It's 'Frightening' than Annie is doing this kind of stuff--what?! I thought she was just born!

Hope it's been a spooky season for everyone else too!

One Fish, Two Fish, Dead Fish, New Fish

36 hours of new pet owner drama--that's what we've had at our house.

The 2 new fish from the Fall Festival came home Friday night. Saturday we made the trip to the store to get a fish bowl and food. By Saturday evening, Mary's fish, Goldie, was hanging out down by the rocks. And that night...dead. We had lots of crying and lots of those important talks about Goldie's happy hours of feeling loved. There was gratitute for Cookie, Andrew's fish, and his great health. There was a promised trip to the pet store Monday to get a new fish. After sweet bedtime prayers and much sadness, we had to wake up this morning and find Cookie dead as well. Mary was still mourning over Goldie, Andrew was shocked and sad about Cookie, but then happy about getting a new fish from the pet store. Whitney has caught on to the whole fish ownership idea, so I believe we'll be getting three.

All I can say is thank heavens the kids weren't winning puppies at the festival! Fish drama is about all I can handle!

If I Had a Million Dollars

The song title worked, so I had to use it, even though the gist of the post is our ward Fall Festival last night. There was a chili cookoff, carnival, pumpkin carving contest, and trunk or treat rolled into one. The kids have been counting down the days. Mom and Dad too, b/c we love Halloween.

Here's Matt and I in our 'Million Dollar' costume, or better said, 'Ten Million Dollar' costume. He was the Publishers Clearing House Prize Patrol and I was the surprized winner. A fun idea--thank you internet.

Mary was Dorothy

Andrew was a bat
Whitney was a dragon--or a 'ragon' as she would say.
Annie got stuck being my curlers and pjs partner. She didn't seem to mind, and all was well til she discovered the curlers. Annie's costume was perfect though, since she fell asleep in the car on the way home, we just put her right in bed. I was tempted to fall asleep in the car on the way home too since I was in my pjs, but Matt threatened to leave me in the garage.

Matt won 2nd prize in the chili cookoff and received his 2nd trophy ever (the last one was in kindergarten soccer). I worry it will grace our living room for weeks to come. My pumpkin won 3rd prize--fun fun. I give the credit to a slow growing pumpkin in the garden that just wouldn't turn orange.

The man and his trophy--a proud Singer moment.

A fun activity and fun family night! The kids LOVED the carnival games, especially the fact that we came home not only with a 2 liter of Root Beer as a prize but also 2 GOLDFISH--yes, real GOLDFISH. Today brought an unexpected trip to Wal-mart for a fish bowl and some food--oh yea, we have to feed these things. I've never seen kids more excited to go to Wal-mart. Good stuff.